Silver Lake grad's court hearing postponed again

Thursday

Feb 20, 2014 at 8:54 AMFeb 20, 2014 at 2:41 PM

Monica Knight of Halifax, now 18, was back in Plymouth District Court Thursday. A judge was expected to decide whether Knight's case would be sent to juvenile court. Instead, the hearing was postponed until March 20. Knight is charged with reckless driving for a 2012 crash that badly injured her 3 student passengers.

Lane Lambert The Patriot Ledger @llambert_ledger

A Plymouth County District Court judge was expected to rule Thursday whether Silver Lake Regional High School graduate Monica Knight of Halifax would get her 2012 reckless driving case sent to juvenile court.

Even if Cannone decides yes or no that day on Knight's juvenile-court motion, it will push a possible trial date beyond the second anniversary of the March 30, 2012 head-on collision in which Knight's three passengers, all fellow Silver Lake students, were badly injured, one of them possibly permanently.

Knight and her attorney, Sheila Curran of Brockton, filed their motion in December, after the Legislature raised the state's "juvenile jurisdiction" age from 17 to 18.

Knight, now 18, was charged with reckless driving and other offenses when her BMW collided with a school bus near the Kingston school. She was 16 and a Silver Lake junior at the time of the crash. She was slightly injured. Her three passengers were also Silver Lake juniors.

Aliza Nantais of Plympton and Brendan McGilley of Halifax have recovered, but Eva Lipton of Plympton remains in a coma and may never fully recover. The school bus driver wasn’t hurt. No students were in the bus at the time.

Knight was charged as an adult at the time of the crash, and again when she was indicted and arraigned. She pleaded innocent. She could be sent to jail for up to 2½ years on a reckless driving conviction, and could have her license revoked or suspended.

Knight graduated with her class in 2013. She was previously scheduled to go to trial Jan. 13 of this year. Cannone postponed the date in December, when Knight and Curran filed the juvenile-court motion.

The new law still allows a juvenile to be charged as an adult, depending on the severity of the offense.

Suffolk University Law School professor Christopher Dearborn said that provision may make the juvenile-court motion a “non-issue.” Cruz’s prosecutors said in December that the age change doesn’t apply, since Knight was charged a year and a half before the law was enacted.

Her case has been contentious almost from the start. She has changed attorneys numerous times, and been sent to the state women’s prison in Framingham three times for violating bail conditions.

Knight filed a plea offer last November but withdrew it when a Plymouth District Court judge rejected it as too lenient.

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